


Like Heat & Honey

by whitewolfbumble



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, F/M, Falling In Love, First Dance, First Kiss, First Love, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluffy Ending, Love at First Sight, POV Bucky Barnes, Reader-Insert, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, True Love, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 09:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17363705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitewolfbumble/pseuds/whitewolfbumble
Summary: "Only when he met you did Bucky really start to feel again."A fic in which Bucky is so in love with you in a way he’s never experienced before and it consumes him. A poetic, soft, healing Bucko.





	Like Heat & Honey

He had been left cold and numb for so long. Every touch was immediately forgotten, every cut and bruise and broken bone ignored. It had to be like that for him survive. The Asset. The Winter Soldier.

He didn’t feel the heat or the cold or the wind or the snow; he felt only the need to complete the mission. The biting dry wind and the icy scape which he arrived back to time and time again was nothingness to him. Not even the blood that dripped on his hands, red and thick, was felt.

Bits and pieces came back to the man who had been stifled under all that once he was free of that life. Faces of those he murdered. Those horrific acts he did. But true feeling didn’t.

He spent his time wondering then accepting that whatever Hydra did to him and however they altered him, was permanent. The numb and the void and the nothingness inside him was there to stay.

So burning his tongue on coffee became a regular occurence, always eyeing the liquid for a time before taking a first sip to the curious but unquestioning eyes of Steve. No one, not even his friend, could truly understand why.

Training with the Black Widow, he only knew something was wrong when her mask broke, shock on her face as a bone snapped or blood poured through his broken skin. He wouldn’t feel the heat of the blood or the dripping liquid down his face or arm or leg, continuing the fight blinding until she stopped it.

On missions he didn’t feel the cold in his bones or sun on his face or wind on his skin. He could remain in the same cramped position for hours, waiting for an enemy to appear, crouched and silent. He could get shot and keep moving. Stabbed and keep fighting. Beaten and still beat back. 

But then something simple happened. Something insignificant and mundane on the surface, but extraordinary underneath.

You walked into the room. And immediately his entire world changed.

The party was twinkling with bright laughter and the clinking of champagne flutes, soft music and soft dances to accompany it. The warmth in the air was weaved between men and women in delicate wisps, the glow of delight catching in the faces and eyes of those there.

It was beautiful and it was completely lost on Bucky, seeing the world as he always had, as though it could never touch him. Never be real for him. Never be  _ for  _ him.

But you walked into the grand room in a green dress, your gown long and velvet and smile small and bright.  Your eyes gleamed as though they danced in perfect and delicate little steps like that of the guests surrounding you. And with a mere look the glass that separated Bucky from the world shattered at the sight of you.

It was a timeless moment, the past and future falling away and leaving nothing but the present. Nothing but you, in that moment. The party itself fell away. The people there no longer existed. Nothing did.

Nothing but you.

_ You _ .

Who  _ were  _ you?

Bucky swallowed as you moved, as you greeted and smile and laughed. God, your laugh was a song that he had never heard but somehow knew by heart. One that he had been trying to remember since the day he was born, the echo of it just on the edge of his mind and tip of his tongue. Hearing it now clicked that melody, that champagne light sound into place in his mind hereafter. 

“What is she?” Bucky heard himself say through the buzz in his ears, your unsung lullaby instantly dazing him.

The word goddess came to mind, an Aphrodite of love and beauty manifested before him. 

An angel.

A mirage.

A miracle.

“Civilian,” Steve responded simply, watching his friend try and decipher you. “A friend. She’s a good anchor for us, reminding us of the people we do this all for.”

Catching eyes with Steve you walked toward him, the sparkle of the low lights in your eyes somehow brighter than the source, shining and glistening.

“Y/N,” greeted Steve warmly, his arms wrapping around you as though it was insignificant to touch something as celestial as you. “You’ve been missed around here.”

You laughed again, that easy lullaby smoothing the rough edges of Bucky’s soul, a balm taking hold and antidote to the years of nothingness he had felt before this night.

_ Y/N _ , he thought to himself, slow and gentle in his mind, careful with the word as though the charge of caring for it was passed to him.

Your name was a word that would entrance his tongue to whisper it over and over in darkness later that night in the solitude of his room. Trying to sleep and failing because he was thinking of you. The sound of your name coming from his lips would cover him like a blanket. It wrapped him up and filled his body with a pleasant heat.

But in that moment of meeting you, it was a shock of heat to his system, as though he had never felt warm before in his life.

“This is my friend, Bucky,” Steve introduced, turning the full tender force of your presence on him.

“Hello Bucky, it’s good to meet you,” you said. 

Your voice was the the smoothest voice he had heard, but it somehow rattled inside him, gaining strength and wracking down to his bones and deeper.

It felt like that vibration you gave off connected somewhere in his soul too. It was a place little visited, little tended to, but like an early summer wind the dust stirred and life was breathed back into him.

A hand was reached out to him- yours, so little compared to his- and instantly he was afraid. Afraid to break it, afraid of the roughness of his palms to yours. But he was more afraid that if he took your hand, he would never let it go.

His hand grasped yours, unable to look away from the connection of your skin touching his. An electric fire burned it, searing the memory of his first touch of you. It cascade up his arm, under his skin and through his veins, spreading out and filling his whole body. He could feel his skin flush red and his heart race. He could feel his muscles and bones ache to move closer, to feel more of your skin on his. 

It was the most biting and beautiful anguish he had ever felt.

Or, had he ever truly felt anything before this moment? Bucky didn’t think so, didn’t think that before this moment he was anything at all. You gave him life in this moment, your small hand in his. You sparked and set on fire a warmth and life he hadn’t experienced before.

“Bucky?” you asked, watching him as he watched you, his hand holding yours as though unable to let go.

It gave him pause, the idea of breaking this connection with you. It was the first time he had ever truly felt this- or any- way, and how could he be expected to give it up so quickly? He looked to his thumb, gently and subtly moving across your smooth skin.

_ Don’t make me let go, Y/N. _

You tilted your head, leaning into him to catch his eyes and attention away from your hand holding his. It wasn’t just his attention he would give you if you wanted. You could have all of him if you asked. Every last piece. Anything to remain in your presence. Anything at all to simply be near. To simply hold hands.

Champagne and whiskey and scotch could never do for Bucky what your eyes did to him now, blinking slow through lovely lashes, a soft and knowing smile following.

“Would you like to dance with me?” you asked, an instant type of drunkenness taking hold at your words.

Bucky didn’t respond- couldn’t respond- to that, only able to step up to you, moving you closer to the dance floor without hesitation. He didn’t know when he danced last, had no desire too. His only desire was you.

He should have placed one hand on your waist and taken your other hand in his. But his body reacted apart from the social norm. He held you on the dance floor to the slow jazz music, drown out by the sound of your breathing and beat of your heart pressed to his. His arms were held around you gentle and firm as though holding something impossibly dear and impossibly close. Yours you wrapped slowly around him, one resting in his hair, the other on his back.

Holding you like this, holding you so close, there was nothing he could do but feel the sensation that was  _ you _ .

You were a flame- a heat in the middle of winter- and every movement you made and word you spoke fanned those flames. You lit up and warmed every corner of every room. Bucky was sure if he could peel his eyes off of you for a moment that he would see the orange flames of  _ you _ flickering in his own eyes. He would never know though. He would never be able to break his eyes away from you. He just knew he would crumble to ash if he did.

“Y/N,” he whispered your name, almost to himself, wanting to say the word out loud.

“Yes?” you responded immediately, your head moving to look up at your enraptured partner.

In doing so your lips almost touched his, and he could have sworn he saw the same spark he felt light in your eyes too. He couldn’t help but smile: at the spark he saw, at the spark he felt, and how you didn’t pull back or pull away. Everyone did. Everyone always did. 

But you stayed held to him, delicately pink lips just below his own, expression as soft as you felt in his arms.

“Will you dance with me after this song?” he asked quietly to you. You had only just started dancing, but he couldn’t wait to ask you.

“Yes, Bucky,” you said, smile growing to match his.

You closed your eyes, pressing into him just under his jawline. Soon your nose soothing moved against his skin to the rhythm of the music, Bucky’s hand moving to thread his fingers into your hair and his breath cascading down your cheek and neck. And with every inhale he breathed in your warmth and sweetness, forgetting anything before you.

It was as though you were a warm, smokey honey. You were notes of floral,  beautiful and wild and soft. You were smokey, rich and deep and smooth like whiskey, You were so warm, the heat radiating off of you like the waves of a hot spring, drowning him and pulling him under with every wash of the water, every word from your mouth, every soft glance from your eyes.

“And Y/N?” he whispered to you.

“Hmm?” you hummed peacefully, caught up in the feelings of his arms.

“Will you dance with me to every song tonight?”

There was a pause where your movement stopped and he waited, wondering how he could ever break apart from you now that he found you.

“I will, Bucky,” you whispered back to him, nuzzling deeper and erupting another wave of heat in him, your words like honey. 

“Y/N?” he whispered again, this time feeling your breathy chuckle on his neck, hearing that lullaby in his ears. It sent a shiver of pleasure through him, making you feel that way in his arms.

“Bucky,” You looked up to him this time, your nose against his and lips practically touching his as you spoke, making his breath hitch. “Just kiss me already?”

Breath held in his chest, Bucky breached the distance between you, pressing his lips to yours as though the desire for this had been a lifetime in waiting.

You tasted sweeter than honey.

You felt hotter than fire.

And he knew, even if there was physical distance between you, he would never let you go.

  
  



End file.
